


cause i'm drowning for you

by ssilverarrowss



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Dark, Hate Sex, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:50:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssilverarrowss/pseuds/ssilverarrowss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico wonders when he started sleeping with a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cause i'm drowning for you

**Author's Note:**

> A messed up little product of the unfortunate Russian Grand Prix and an overload of feelings and thoughts.  
> Title from “Drowning” by Banks.

_Room 706._

Nico can feel the dry heave pour from his chest, catch in his mouth. It’s not an invitation and it’s not a request. Nico doesn’t know what it is anymore. Doesn’t know what _they_ are anymore, or what’s left of them.

His teeth ghost over his bottom lip, dry and cracked from the hot, oppressive air of Bahrain.

Nico and Lewis – they drift. They skirt around each other, and it’s almost a mutually beneficial disregard, carefully crafted and expertly executed. There’s always a Sebastian or a Daniel or a Kimi between them, filling the space, always someone else to talk to, to turn to.

It makes it almost look like a coincidence, an accident. It never really is.

And then _this_ – they’ve fallen into an unspoken rhythm that Nico doesn’t remember agreeing to. It starts when Lewis drunkenly knocks on Nico’s hotel room door one night and makes it abundantly clear he has no intention to talk.

Instead, his hands fist in the thin material of Nico’s t-shirt, mouth wide and gasping against Nico’s neck, and Nico, against his better judgement, melts and surrenders because the longing had been tugging painfully at his ribs for too long. It’s empty and it’s hollow, Nico knows, but the taste of Lewis’s tongue scraping against the roof of his mouth is enough to make him forget.

Lewis holds him like he loves him, and Nico’s back arches and _I miss you_ almost spills from his lips but it’s stifled by a whimper. They breathe heavily in the night air but say nothing, Lewis running the tip of his nose over Nico’s jawline and it almost feels like home.

But Lewis walks away, he leaves, because that’s what he does, Nico learns.

No, he doesn’t leave.

He _abandons._

*

The familiar smell of motor oil and the unmistakable tension continues to hang in the air between them at the track. Nico’s eyes stray to the opposite side of the garage, effortlessly seeking out Lewis amidst all the mechanics and engineers milling about. His gaze lingers on Lewis’s back, and he wonders, _what happened to us?_

A heavy sigh presses its way out of Nico’s mouth and he turns his attention back to the sheet of telemetry in his hand.

*

Hungary is a disaster for both of them. Nico wrings his hands, because he can already taste Lewis’s metallic anger in his mouth. It’s a system – it’s infallible.

Lewis claims him like a prize, lips capturing Nico’s in a bruising kiss in the elevator back at the hotel, and Nico’s breath hitches.

It’s a clash of teeth and tongue, Lewis’s nails leaving scratches on Nico’s arms, red and angry marks against the pale of his skin, hands twisting in and out of his hair. Lewis fucks out his frustration, and Nico lets him, because Lewis is needy and Nico has a bad habit of caring too much.

Something thick and painful pours out from their skins – it tastes a lot like loss, like a desperate longing for something young and innocent that died a long time ago.

Nico knows that Lewis only touches him like _this_ now – fingers dancing cruelly over the smooth surface of his body, dipping with a kind of contempt that’s hard to miss. It’s almost animalistic – Lewis’s eyes darkened with hunger, teeth sharp against Nico’s neck, fingers splayed out on the expanse of his chest. Nico’s lips tremble as he exhales slowly, feeling Lewis pass through his bones.

He’s merciless as he presses his way inside Nico, possessing him, spilling through his system like a disease. _You’re heartless,_ Nico thinks, lungs like lead, fingers twisted in the sheets.

Lewis pulls back to look at him, fingertips grazing his cheekbone, and his mouth curls into a smile but it’s cold.

Nico wonders when he started sleeping with a stranger.

*

It’s brief and it’s rare, but Nico sees it sometimes, in flickers – in the curve of Lewis’s lips, the softness that exists beneath the jagged edges. _His_ Lewis, not what he became.

They lay on a bed in a hotel room in Singapore, enveloped in a humid midnight, city lights dancing lazily across their skins.

“I need to hear you say it.” Lewis tells him. Their entwined hands hang loosely in the space between them.

There’s a beat – a moment of calculated silence.

“I don’t love you.” Nico says evenly. It’s a well-rehearsed line, repeated often, until Nico wears the lie like a second skin, until it becomes a self-taught reflex.

There’s a second of conviction, and then it’s gone.

“Good.” Lewis replies, and it feels like teeth to the throat. There’s no relief in his voice, but no hint of sadness either.

A rustling of sheets, and then Lewis is pressing a kiss against Nico’s collarbone, soft and tender. It’s moments like this that are the most dangerous, Nico knows, because it’s easy to forget that this isn’t them anymore.

His skin tingles, and his mouth is heavy with all the words he doesn’t know how to say, confessions caught somewhere in his throat. Lewis’s mouth is warm and tastes like home, but Nico’s chest already throbs with a painful inevitability, because he knows the softness fades with the night.

When the sun begins to skim the sky, Lewis leaves.

Lewis _abandons_ , and Nico wonders when he started sleeping with a ghost.

*

By Japan, all traces of _Lewis_ have faded, desaturated and dripping, like he never really existed.

Nico’s forced back with a bitter disdain, a piercing reminder of where he belongs, and an ache rips through his sternum as he yields, because that’s what’s expected of him.

The anger simmers beneath Nico’s skin, beneath the hurt and the hopelessness, and he can feel his knuckles pale as he tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

Everyone breaks, eventually. It’s just a matter of time.

*

In Russia, Nico learns.

Lewis’s cold fingers snake around Nico’s wrist and his eyes gleam with a desire to break, but it’s different now. The taste of Lewis’s lips is embedded in Nico’s skin, but _this_ – this isn’t Lewis.

Breathing without Lewis is difficult – it hurts, rips at the edges of his lungs – but it’s not impossible. It’s a fresh wound, red and raw and angry, but it will heal.

He inhales, and it’s messy and uneven, a product of lungs that had been drowned for too long, but it’s his own.

Nico loves Lewis, thinks he always will, in some way.

But this isn’t Lewis, and this isn’t love.

 


End file.
